In what strikes me as a sign of serious desperation, corporate lobbyists are ginning up crowds to disrupt town-hall meetings of Democratic Congressmembers. I’ve read some fairly hysterical reactions to this in Democratic circles, comparing the rent-a-mobs to “Brownshirts” and “stormtroopers,” but (Godwin’s Law aside) if the lobbyists thought health care reform was on the ropes, why resort to such a high-risk tactic? True, it worked during the 2000 Recount in Florida, but that was more due to the stolid incompetence of the Gore Campaign. Democrats should take this as a challenge to get their own people out to these meetings and to denounce the tactics for what they are: fake staged theatre politics by bigshot lobbyists who realize they are on the losing side of an important issue.